Five to Midnight: the prequel
by the local knicker merchant
Summary: A series of one shots providing a glimpse into the lives of Carla and Jamie before they returned to Weatherfield.


**Father's Day**

Carla stretched her legs out in front of her on the beach towel and leaned back, her hands dug into the soft sand behind her, propping her up as she lazed in the sun. She watched as Jamie played in the sand, digging into it with her bright orange plastic shovel and filling up another equally as bright green plastic bucket, before gleefully emptying it out, an action that was accompanied by a fit of giggles.

Her eyes moved from her daughter and down the length of the beach, her gaze lingering on the families enjoying the warm summer Saturday afternoon on the Devon coastline. She looked on sadly as mums and dads played with their children, helping them build sandcastles, splashing in the water, squabbling over applying a fresh coat of sunscreen, slurping happily on bright pink wedges of watermelon.

She'd never let scenes like these bother her before; she was happy with Jamie and Jamie was happy with her. Together, they were enough for each other. Partners might come and go, but ultimately it was the two of them against the world.

Carla rarely thought about the fact that Jamie would be three in less than six months' time and yet she had never met her father. Even worse was the fact that her father had made not one attempt to meet her. Not one phone call, not one letter, not one enquiry through his father, Ken. Nothing. Carla had learned to live with his absence. But now, for the first time in her life, Jamie felt his absence deeply.

Carla allowed her mind to wander back to the moment the previous day when the ghost of Peter Barlow re-entered their lives like a bolt of lightning.

* * *

Carla smiled and waved at Jamie as the toddler sat on the floor playing with all her little nursery friends. Catching sight of her mum, Jamie's face lit up into a big smile as she raised her hand, waving back happily.

"Mrs Connor?"

"Yes," Carla said, turning to greet the young woman who had appeared by her side. "It's Jenny, right? You're Jamie's room leader?"

"Yes," Jenny nodded. "If you've got a minute, we need to have a quick chat about Jamie."

"There's nothing wrong, is there?" Carla asked, suddenly anxious over her daughter's welfare. "She's not sick or summat?"

"No," Jenny reassured her. "Nothing like that. It's just, earlier today during craft time, all the children made Father's Day cards."

"Oh, I see," Carla murmured; she knew exactly what the problem was. "Go on."

"Jamie… well, Jamie got a little bit upset."

"I'm not surprised."

"I don't mean to pry…"

"Her father's not part of her life," Carla revealed, matter-of-fact.

"Like I said, I don't want to pry," Jenny said with some hesitation, not wanting to open any old wounds. "I just wanted to let you know what had happened. And that she might need some extra cuddles tonight."

"Okay, thanks," Carla said as she looked back to Jamie who seemed to have gotten over her earlier upset. But Carla knew the time had come, the moment she had secretly been dreading ever since Jamie had been born and Peter hadn't cared enough to meet his own daughter. She would have to talk to Jamie about her father, Peter Barlow.

* * *

Carla glanced in the rear-view mirror to the little girl strapped securely into her car seat. She found herself constantly checking on Jamie during their drive home from nursery, on the lookout for any signs that her daughter was upset or disturbed in any way.

"Jamie," Carla called out to catch her daughter's attention, trying her hardest to keep her voice calm and upbeat.

"Yeth, mummy," the little girl lisped in response.

"Did you have fun at nursery today?"

Jamie nodded.

"What did you do, honey?"

"We play obble course," Jamie began her list of the day's activities. "In garden. We story time, thleep, cwaft."

"What did you make in craft, baby?"

"Cards," Jamie said. "For daddy. I make free!"

"You made three?" Carla asked. "You mean you made three cards for daddy?"

"Grandad Johnny. Grandad Ken. Daddy."

"Oh," Carla smiled. "That's lovely, sweetheart, Grandad Johnny and Grandad Ken will be so happy to get your card. We'll drop them off at the post office, okay?"

Jamie nodded, her brow furrowing as she thought hard, trying to resolve her dilemma. "How give daddy card?" she asked.

"I'm not sure, sweetheart. I'll figure something out." Carla watched as Jamie lapsed into silence and wished with all her heart she didn't have to have this conversation. "Jamie? Miss Jenny said you were a little bit sad when you made your cards."

Jamie nodded.

"Was that because of your daddy?"

"I don't have daddy."

"Oh, baby," Carla sighed. "Of course you've got a daddy."

"Where daddy?"

"Daddy had to go away for a while, darling," Carla said, swallowing down her hesitation at lying to her daughter about something so important. "Just for a little while. But he loves you so very much. Lots and lots and lots. And one day he's going to come back for you and then everything will be okay."

Carla silently prayed that Peter wouldn't make a liar out of her and would one day come for Jamie. As much as she had hated him in the past for the pain he had inflicted on her, she desperately wanted him to be part of their daughter's life, wanted him to be a real father to her. As to what she wanted from him personally, even she couldn't answer that. She'd buried her feelings for him years ago, put them in a box and buried them deep; it was the only way she had been able to move on.

* * *

Carla sighed as she remembered watching the growing confusion in her daughter's eyes the longer she thought about her daddy. She wished she could take away Jamie's pain of not knowing him. But what could she do? She couldn't force Peter to take an interest. Could she?

"Mummy! Mummy! Look!"

Carla looked up to see Jamie running towards her, slipping and sliding in the soft sand, her arms out in front of her, her fingers closed around a newly discovered treasure.

"What have you got, sweetheart?"

"Look!" Jamie commanded as she opened up her hands to reveal a delicate white shell, buffed smooth by the tide and washed up on the Devon shore, waiting to be collected and added to this little girl's ever-growing shell collection.

"Oh!" Carla gasped in awe. "That's a pretty one."

"Pwetty," Jamie agreed, a smile on her face as she gazed down at her latest shell acquisition, before holding it out to Carla. "Mummy look after."

"Of course, baby."

Carla made a show of taking the shell from Jamie and placing it securely in her handbag. "There," she announced. "Nice and safe."

"Fank you, mummy!" Jamie said, before turning and running off, on the hunt for more treasures to add to her collection.

Carla watched her go with a sad smile. She was thankful that for now Jamie had forgotten about her upset from the day before, but she knew that tomorrow would bring everything back to the surface once more. Father's Day. A day Jamie would have to spend without her father. And Carla didn't know how much longer she could fob her off with trite answers to her probing questions.

* * *

"With Eeyore's tail troubles solved," Carla read in a soft voice from one of Jamie's favourite Winnie the Pooh books, glancing over the top of the page at her daughter lying snug under her duvet as she struggled to keep her eyes open until the very end of the story. "Pooh gathered all their friends together again. 'Party time at last!' he announced. 'I love parties!' cried Roo. 'Are we celebrating finding Eeyore's tail?' 'Yes,' replied Pooh. 'That… and honey.' 'And friendship,' added Eeyore, remembering how very hard everyone had tried to help him that day. 'Friendship most of all.'"

Carla gently closed the book and set it down on the bedside table; Jamie had finally lost her battle with the Sandman and was now sleeping peacefully, her eyes closed, her hands pressed together and tucked underneath her cheek, her sleek black cat Snowy curled up and purring contentedly near her feet.

She watched her daughter as she slept; watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the fluttering of her eyelids as she entered dreamland, the look of pure innocence on her face.

"Okay, baby," she whispered as she leaned forward and kissed Jamie softly on her forehead. "I'll do it for you."

Carla rose to her feet and slipped quietly from Jamie's bedroom, pausing at the door to gaze on her daughter for one last moment, reminding herself of why she had to do it.

With the image of her sleeping daughter ingrained in her mind's eye, Carla hurried into the living room and, picking her phone up from the coffee table where she'd left it earlier, prayed that he still had the same number.

"Hello?"

The moment she heard Peter's voice, it was as if the world suddenly stopped. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart skipped a beat and her voice altogether abandoned her. She couldn't speak or make any kind of noise, not even a grunt or a squeak. Hearing his voice for the first time in almost three years completely overcame her; all she could do was listen, first to his breathing and then, when she didn't reply, to his increasingly irate ranting.

"Hello?" he repeated. "Is anyone there? ... Is this some kind of joke? Because it's not flaming funny! … I know you're there! I can hear you breathing, you weirdo … If I get my hands on you, you're gonna be sorry, do you hear me? … Hey! … What do you want? ... You are so gonna get it, don't you ever call this number again, you –"

The line went dead; Peter had hung up.

Carla couldn't help but smile at Peter's telephone tirade; in an instant it brought back so many memories of their time together, of his famous temper, his first-class sulking, his general grumpiness when things didn't go his way. But, despite all this, Carla had still loved him more than she'd ever loved anyone before. Or since.

She sighed as she considered her current dilemma. She couldn't give Jamie her father on Father's Day, and there was no way she was calling Peter back, but she had to do something. She had to give her some kind of memory that involved her father; something she could hang onto until the day came that she could have the real thing.

* * *

Carla woke the next day to little hands shaking her by the shoulder and stroking her hair, little lips kissing her cheek, fingers pawing at her face.

"Mummy," Jamie's voice pierced through the veil of half-consciousness that had valiantly fought against wakefulness. Fought, that is, until a two-and-a-half-year-old whirlwind had clambered up onto her bed. "Mummy, you wake?"

"Yeah, baby," Carla murmured, wrapping her arms around Jamie and pulling her in for a cuddle, praying she would lay still and sleep a little longer. But all hope for more sleep faded when mother and daughter were joined on the bed by Snowy the cat, intent on getting in on the action, climbing brazenly over Carla's body to insert himself into the cosy space between Carla and his little mistress, Jamie.

"Snowy!" Carla complained with a grimace. "Get your bum outta my face!"

Carla pushed the cat away from her while Jamie burst into a fit of giggles. Deeply offended by being so unceremoniously displaced, Snowy turned his back on both of them and engaged in a meticulous grooming routine at the foot of the bed.

"Come here, baby," Carla said, pulling her daughter close to her once again. "Come have a cuddle with mummy."

For a moment, the two of them lay side-by-side enjoying Sunday morning cuddles. But Carla knew this time couldn't last forever; the time had come when she had to speak.

"Do you know what day it is today, sweetheart?" she asked her daughter.

Jamie shook her head.

"It's Father's Day."

"Daddy."

"That's right," Carla nodded. "Did you want me to tell you about your daddy? About what he was like?"

Jamie nodded.

"Okay," Carla said, rubbing Jamie's back, comforting her. "After breakfast I've got something to show you."

"Now mummy!" Jamie cried impatiently.

"After breakfast," Carla insisted. "I promise."

"But…" Jamie trailed off when she saw the look on her mum's face; even at her tender age, she knew not to mess with her mum when she looked like that. "Okay, mummy."

"Good girl," Carla said as she placed a kiss, first on Jamie's cheek, then her temple, while her fingers combed gently through the toddler's hair. "I love you, sweetheart."

"Wuv you mummy."

* * *

After breakfast, Carla fulfilled her promise to Jamie; she pulled her daughter onto her lap as she sat in her favourite armchair and, picking up a photo album she'd set on the coffee table the night before, flicked through the pages of photographs of her and Peter in happier times.

"This," Carla whispered to Jamie, one arm wrapped around her daughter's waist, the other pointing at Peter Barlow, grinning up at them from the page. He was leaning casually up against a brick wall, clad in a black leather jacket, black t-shirt and upturned dark blue jeans, his face sporting his trademark stubble, dark brown to match his hair and peppered with grey. "Is your daddy."

Jamie stared at the photograph of her father curiously; she reached out and touched the image of his face, running her small chubby finger around the outline of his head.

"Daddy?"

"That's right, baby," Carla said with a soft kiss on the top of her head.

She turned over the page to reveal more photographs to Jamie, some of Peter alone, some with Carla, the latter provoking an instant reaction from Jamie.

"Mummy!" she cried, twisting her head upwards to peer at her mum, before turning back to the photo album, eager to see more.

So Carla showed her more and, soon enough, the photographs began to show a third person, a curly-haired lad, yet another stranger to Jamie.

"Who?" Jamie asked, pointing at the child. "Who dat mummy?"

"That's Simon, sweetheart," Carla revealed. "He's your brother."

"Thimon," Jamie repeated. "Bruvva?"

"Yes, baby," Carla said. "One day you'll get to meet him as well."

Carla continued to flick through the photo album, telling Jamie stories about her life with Peter and Simon, about the flat they lived in, the shop Peter owned, the factory. Then, right at the end of the album were the photographs of her and Peter's sailing trip to the Caribbean in 2012. One of the happiest times of her life, she kept these photographs a little bit separate, away from the scenes of their everyday life, kept apart to remind herself of the special time she and Peter had shared.

"Me and your daddy," Carla explained to Jamie. "We went sailing on this boat. It was called the Lady Bronwen and it had a really tall mast that reached high up into the sky with sails that billowed in the wind. And when the wind was strong, we would glide through that water so quickly it would take your breath away. Do you wanna know where we sailed?"

Jamie nodded eagerly. So Carla pulled out her mobile phone and, opening the map app, traced their route down the west coast of Africa and across the Atlantic.

"First we sailed from England, from home, all the way down, past Spain and Portugal and Morocco, see here in Africa, down to the Canary Islands, to Lanzarote. We had to wait there while the boat got painted. This picture here," she pointed to a photo of her and Peter in their swimsuits, their arms wrapped around each other, standing in the shallows on a tropical beach. Peter was staring at the camera, a self-satisfied smirk on his face, but Carla was gazing lovingly at Peter, as if she had forgotten the camera was even there. "This was on the beach at Lanzarote. And then we sailed all the way across here," Carla ran her finger across the great expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean. "All the way to the Caribbean. And you know that's a long long way, but I was never scared. You know why?"

Jamie shook her head.

"Because your daddy was a natural sailor. You know he used to be in the navy? He used to go down in submarines, underneath the water, all the way to the bottom of the ocean. And daddy taught me how to sail, how to tie the ropes, but he called the ropes sheets, don't ask me why, and how to trim the sails, and read the wind. We had the best time, the time of our lives. Your daddy had the best time; it healed him, made him better. It was the ocean, the sailor's life. He loved it. He really did. The sea…"

Carla lapsed into a contemplative silence, unaware that Jamie was again looking up at her, curiously this time, waiting patiently for her to speak.

"Mummy?"

"Hmm…?" Carla murmured.

"Mummy!" Jamie called out again, more insistent this time.

"Yes, baby, sorry," Carla said, slowly coming out of her reverie. "I was just thinking. I've got an idea."

* * *

Carla took Jamie's hand in hers and led her down the old town pier that jutted out into the English Channel. Over the wooden slats they walked, over the lichen stained lengths of wood, some squeaking, some bouncing a little as they put all their weight and their trust onto the weathered structure.

"Come on, baby," Carla pulled gently on Jamie's arm, the toddler having stopped to peer through one of the gaps between the slats and down to the churning water below.

"But, mummy!" Jamie whined, much more interested in her game than whatever her mum had in mind.

"Come on!"

"What we do, mummy?"

"We're going to send your daddy his Father's Day card."

At the mention of her daddy, Jamie obediently followed Carla to the very end of the pier where suddenly they stopped. Jamie looked up at her mum; Carla was stood, still and silent, staring out at the wide expanse of water, that domestic stretch of water, the English Channel, beyond to the west, the Celtic Sea, and tucked away out of sight, the Bay of Biscay.

But Carla was thinking of another sea, and another time, another lifetime it seemed, back to when she and Peter were sailing the Caribbean together. Peter had seemed so at peace on the water, as if the wide blue yonder was his spiritual home.

"Mummy?" Jamie tugged on Carla's arm.

Carla looked down at her daughter and, crouching down to her level, looked her square in the eye.

"Sweetheart, do you remember I told you how daddy was a sailor?"

Jamie nodded.

"Well, what we're going to do," she said as she took a glass bottle from her bag. "We're going to take this bottle, you see here, it's got your Father's Day card inside? We're going to throw it into the sea and it's going to get delivered to your daddy."

"Daddy live in sea?" Jamie asked curiously.

"Daddy's spirit lives in the sea, darling."

"Oh," Jamie mulled this newfound knowledge over in her mind. "He get card?"

"Yes, baby, he'll get your card," Carla said, outwardly confident, yet silently praying that nothing would happen to expose her as a liar to her daughter. "And I know he's going to love it."

"'Kay," Jamie smiled at the thought of her daddy receiving her card, of the smile that would break across his face when he realised what it was, and who it was from.

"Do you want to take it?" Carla asked, holding out the bottle to Jamie. "And throw it into the water."

Jamie took the bottle gingerly from her mum and, stepping forward to the edge of the pier, dropped it into the water. Immediately Jamie leaned out as far as she could, held back only by Carla's protective grip on her shoulder, to watch the bottle land with a small splash into the water below.

"Look, mummy," Jamie said as the bottle began to bob in the water, dragged slowly out by the tide into deeper waters. "Going to daddy."

Carla leaned down and lifted Jamie up, wrapping her arms around her daughter as she enjoyed her first real experience of her daddy, however nebulous, and held her close. Jamie wrapped her arms around her mum's neck and, resting her cheek on Carla's shoulder, watched her bottle slowly drift out to sea until finally she could no longer see it. It was gone, disappeared into the sea that her father loved, the sea that would deliver to him her Father's Day card and perhaps, if she was very lucky, would one day bring him back to her.


End file.
